


I Think I'll Change My Life Today

by SegaBarrett



Series: DJ Hey Dave [3]
Category: Phil Collins (Musician), Queen (Band)
Genre: Cracky, Gen, Post-Innuendo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 20:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17926241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Freddie spends time with the band and another friend.





	I Think I'll Change My Life Today

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own or know Queen or Phil Collins.
> 
> A/N: Title is from "Living Forever" from Genesis. Quoted songs are "I Can't Dance", also by Genesis, as well as "Living Forever" and of course, Queen's "Staying Power" and a special guest tune. 
> 
> Warning: References to Freddie's illness.

It was a bright and sunny day over Garden Lodge, and the year was 1991.

Freddie Mercury had found himself presented with a problem that was driving him up the wall, a problem that he was running out of ways to solve. 

“My eyesight is becoming complete and utter shit,” he grumbled as he tossed the magazine he was flipping through on his bed, looking over at Roger Taylor. “Can’t see a bloody thing properly half the time.”

The other three members of the band exchanged looks. They had been learning, ever since discovering Freddie’s illness, that sympathy was usually responded to with Freddie either snorting or deciding that he wished he hadn’t brought it up. 

“What if you just got glasses?” John Deacon tossed out, before picking up the magazine and turning it to the side. “I think you would look okay with glasses.”

“I can’t wear glasses,” Freddie complained. “I mean… can you imagine me with glasses? I would look like a real dinosaur.”

“Maybe you should try some on before you rush to snap judgments,” Brian told him. “Let’s get you out of here and on another adventure. It’s been a little while.”

Freddie stood up and grumbled.

“What an exciting adventure, dears! Let’s just go and get old Freddie some glasses.”

Roger snorted. 

“Quick, let’s go. So you can see when we flip you off in the studio!”

***

They made their way out the front door, to find themselves confronted by the usual horde of press.

“Do you have any statement on whether Freddie has a disease? I’m Chaisie Lockhart from The Star!”

“My turn,” Roger said to them, and then he stepped up in front of Chaisie’s microphone. “I have something to say about diseases.” He cleared his throat. _“THE MACHINNEEEE OF A DREAAAAAM…”_

Freddie broke into a wide grin, looking around at the others. 

_“SUCH A CLEAN MACHINE….”_

Brian was shaking his head, and John was just plain shaking with laughter.

_“With the pistons a pumpin’….”_ Freddie sang along quietly. 

_“And the hubcaps all gleam!  
I’m holding your wheel…” _

Freddie opened his mouth in a sudden idea and leaned in to Brian, whispering something to him. Brian turned around and ran back into the house, coming back out a minute or so later with a piece of posterboard that declared “Local Man Says in Love with Car, Plans to Marry”.

“I think it’s going to be a lovely wedding, honestly,” he told one of the reporters. “I hope he’ll ask me to be best man.”

Freddie chuckled so hard he had to hold his neck for fear of pulling a muscle in it. A reporter shoved a microphone in his face, and he found he didn’t even care.

“Red roses, or wait, rose petals, all over the steering wheel. That’s what I have been telling him. He has to make sure the honeymoon is the one that they deserve.”

“It’s truly beautiful to see the love shared between one man and his car,” John agreed.

“Ugh!” Chaisie exclaimed. “We’re going to get to the bottom of your illness sooner or later, Mr. Mercury, and when you do, you’ll wish you had just come clean with us!”

_“Oooh, it’s like a disease son!”_ Roger called out as they walked by the press, into the waiting car.

***

“Do you think these frame my face properly? I feel like my face has gotten wider and do these make my face look too wide?” Freddie asked, fiddling with a pair of round-rimmed glasses.

“I think John Lennon wants his frames back,” Roger told him. “Let’s try something different.”

Freddie rolled his eyes.

“I need something that will make me look glamorous, dears.”

“Well, who wants to see forever?” quipped a voice behind them. Freddie turned to find himself looking at the instantly recognizable form of Phil Collins, who had his hair combed back and was wearing a light blue shirt that Freddie felt should not have been worn by anyone.

“Phil!” He exclaimed, putting down the glasses and letting his eyes dart around a moment in embarrassment. He hadn’t expected to run into anyone that he knew, not with himself looking like… well, whatever the press was saying he looked like nowadays.

“I’m sure some of these will suit you. The old eyesight is going for me, too. None of us are as young as we used to be, I’m afraid.” Phil reached up and scratched his head. “Unfortunately, I can’t quite do anything about the hair, either, can I?”

Freddie laughed, slowly feeling at ease. 

“You’re here to buy glasses too, then?” he asked. “I figured I would head down here. I mean, I could go with contacts but… I hear that glasses are going to be all the new fashion, don’t you think?”

“Well, you certainly wear shades well,” Phil told him, “Those star-shaped shades in the We Will Rock You video?”

“I still have those,” Freddie mused. “I have a pair from Invisible Man, too, green ones. Not prescription, though.” He picked up a pair of black-rimmed glasses. “You fancy these?” He tried them on and looked into the mirror. 

“They bring out your eyes,” Phil said. “Don’t you have to go to the eye doctor or whatnot, though?” He tried on a pair of small circular ones. “These make me look like I’m at least a hundred and I’m going to tell someone to get off my lawn.”

“’I fought the war for your sort!’” Freddie quoted.

“’I bet you’re sorry you won.’ I was in that, you know.”

“I do! So does everyone else. You keep telling everyone.” Freddie laughed. “Well, I’ll go with these ones.” He grabbed some hot pink frames, not bothering to try them on. “But when I get out of my exciting eye doctor appointment, stay here. We need to catch up. I hope they’re not planning to blow air into my eye again. Not what I meant with ‘blow, baby blow’ in ‘Staying Power’.”

***  
When Freddie returned with a new prescription, Phil was sitting in the waiting room. 

“So I’ve been offered a part in a movie as a bathhouse owner. But I’ve never been…” 

“To a bathhouse?” Freddie chuckled. “You want me to bring you to one? Let’s start with a gay club, dear. Ease you up. Especially as there’s one down the street while we wait for our glasses to be set up!” Freddie clapped his hands. 

“Wait,” Roger spoke up, “you’re bringing Phil Collins to a gay bar?” 

“Indeed, dears. Are you coming?” 

“I did that once before and I got too many numbers,” Roger groused. “We’ll keep the press occupied while you two go have fun. Somehow.” 

“I could tell them about my dissertation. It’s still in the works,” Brian suggested. 

“We want to distract them with something they actually want to know about!” Roger fired back. 

“Well dress up as the school girl again,” Brian suggested. 

“I’ll get too many numbers again.” 

As the rest of the group bickered, Freddie and Phil hopped in a car and drove to the nearest club. It wasn’t Freddie’s favorite, Heaven, but it would do. 

“Hey, aren’t you Phil Collins?” someone asked. 

Phil, not knowing what to say, replied, “I don’t think so.” 

Freddie laughed, as a few people seemed to be looking at him like they recognized him but, rather than greeting Freddie verbally, were just making hand gestures of interest with a range from “come over here” to less appropriate things. 

The club’s proprietor walked over to them. 

“I had no idea you two were here! I hope the queue wasn’t too long!” 

“Oh no, not at all,” Freddie said. “Please meet my friend Phil. He wanted to see what it’s all about.” 

“Nice to meet you Phil, I’m Benny. We’re a pretty calm place here, no crazy bondage nights or anything. Just drinking and dancing. You think we could get you two up on stage? Our band canceled at the last minute. Something about Liam Neeson, hell if I know.” 

“Maybe after a few drinks,” Freddie replied. “Can I get a vodka tonic? What about you, Phil?” 

“Jack and Coke?” Phil asked. 

Benny related their order to the bartender, a slim man with curly hair who informed them his name was Mark. 

“Hello, you two,” Mark said. “You two are brightening up a Wednesday night. How are you, Freddie? The press has been rough on you.” 

“What can I do?” Freddie replied. “Price is game, I guess.” 

“And Phil - Another Day in Paradise, huh? I liked that one. I prefer Hang in Long Enough, though. What’s in the cards for you?” 

Phil smiled. 

“In the studio with Genesis.” 

“Already?” 

“No rest for the wicked.” 

“I heard you two might sing tonight.” 

Freddie and Phil looked at each other. 

“Well, I do have part of a song for Genesis we could do, if you wanted,” Phil said. “There’s even a dance.” 

“I don’t know,” Freddie mused, “my leg hasn’t been up to its usual top billing recently, and yes I did just quote my own song.” 

“Well, I don’t think you’ll have trouble with this one!” Phil exclaimed. “Let me show you it.”

***

Phil managed to pull together a bare-bones instrumental track for a new song that he had been working on. He presented the lyrics to Freddie with a shy statement of, “This might be something that you could get behind.”

Freddie looked at them and beamed. 

“Oh yes. I think we could definitely do something with this. And we’ll follow it up with one of my old favorites, that is definitely made for the club scene.” Freddie grinned. “No one will know what hit them, dear.”

“Okay, hi everybody,” Benny said into the microphone. “I’m sure you will all looking forward to seeing the Steel Statues, but they cancelled. So we have two men who I feel need no introduction who are going to rock your world with some new music and old music – give it up!”

Phil cued up “I Can’t Dance” and promptly began to do The Walk around the small stage area, followed by Freddie. 

Freddie grabbed the mic and eagerly began to trade off with Phil:

_“Hot sun, beating down…”_

_“Burnin’ my feet just a-walkin’ around!”_

_“Hot sun, makin’ me sweat!”_

_“Gators getting’ close…”_ Freddie grinned and winked at Phil. _“Hasn’t got me yet!”_

Together, they sang:  
 _“I can’t dance, I can’t talk…”_

When they got up to “a perfect body, with a perfect face,” Phil gave a head-to-toe gesture in the direction of Freddie, which everyone cheered for.

There was a brief pause at the end of the song and then Freddie grabbed the mic again. 

“This is an old song – this song is called Staying Power! Hey Phil, help me out… LET ME SHOW IT TO YOU!”

*** 

“Freddie,” Phil said as they sat outside the club, on the concrete, as Freddie fiddled with his fingers and wished he could smoke. “I would say don’t let the press get you down.” 

“They’re gonna hound me til I die,” Freddie said. “To prove I really was sick.” 

“But they don’t even know what they’re talking about. They rarely do. You know that you could be up there with bubonic plague, tetanus, and leprosy and you know what the fans would see?” 

“Medical bills?” 

“You.”

Freddie looked away.

“Thank you for hanging out with me today. I feel like sometimes I don’t get out much, and I get stir crazy. I used to be everywhere every second. Now, with the press…”

“Well, we’re not done yet,” Phil told him. “I need to bring you to The Farm, so you can see what we’re doing on the new album!”

Freddie nodded. 

“We should be able to dart over before the guys start to get worried about me,” he agreed. 

“You’re in good hands,” Phil said.

“Well, I don’t know about that. You might be a bad influence on me.”

***

“I think you’d like this song,” Phil said, switching on a machine and pulling up a chair, for Freddie first and then himself. “This is one of Tony’s.”

“Doesn’t Tony come up with all of the weird, far-out kind of stuff? What is he up to this time?”

Phil pressed the “play” button and the music began:  
 _“I'm feeling so confused today  
It seems they've changed the rules again  
'Cause in my life I'm trying hard  
To do it all so I can remain  
Healthy and sane  
I'll live forever  
Always one more tomorrow  
Living forever  
Always one more tomorrow…”_

Freddie perched his head up with his fist and listened to it, musing. 

When the next chorus came, though, he sang along quietly on the backing vocal:  
 _“Live for-ever-  
See – to – morrow…”_

Phil tilted his head and looked at him, as if regretting putting on this particular song.

When it had ended, long instrumental and all, Freddie spoke up, “He’s not wrong. Everyone has advice for this or that but at the end of the day… You have to throw caution to the wind to a certain amount. You can’t live every day for someone else or be in fear because you might just slip in your bathroom, crack your head open and – thundercrash – now you’re dead.”

Phil put his head in his hands.

“You sound a bit fatalistic,” he said. 

“Not at all, dear. But you just have to live. You can think about dying every second of the day, but what’s the point?”

Freddie stood up and brushed off his shirt.

“I love the new album,” he told Phil. “Send me a copy when it’s done. And… thank you. For spending the day with me. I don’t get out as much as I would like to.”

“Neither do I,” Phil said.

***

“Home again, home again,” Freddie said as the band drove back to Garden Lodge. “I had fun today.” He picked up his newly minted glasses and put them on his face. “I’m glad they didn’t make me wait for these.”

“You’re Freddie Mercury. Who would tell you to wait?” Roger teased. “You look very smart with those, by the way.”

Freddie sat on his bed and peeked out into his garden, a little wistful.

“What are you thinking about?” Brian asked.

“Just about… life. The future.”

Brian took a seat. 

“And what are you thinking about it?”

Freddie smiled and sang quietly:  
 _“All I need is all in a day,_  
Survive in a way,  
Or just ‘til tomorrow…”

He draped an arm around John first, then Roger, then Brian.

_“There’s always one more tomorrow…”_


End file.
